The FBI previously refused to hire job applicants if they admitted to hiring sex workers or stealing from an employer — or engaging in acts of bestiality.
Today, those acts, which are mostly illegal across the country, are no longer automatic deal breakers for applicants to the nation's top law enforcement agency.
In June, the FBI quietly lowered some of the standards it uses when it conducts background checks on would-be federal agents and other personnel. According to multiple sources briefed on the matter, the FBI did so to facilitate hiring in some cases, even if candidates acknowledged they engaged in sexually deviant activities or stole from an employer.
The move comes as the FBI has lost scores of employees through firings, retirements and resignations since the start of the Trump administration.
Under specific circumstances, the FBI is willing to give candidates a pass on prostitution, as long as they have not hired sex workers three or more times, the sources told CBS News. And the hiring of the sex workers must not have taken place within the last 10 years, several of the sources added.
On this part of the guidance, the FBI spokesperson pointed out that a person may have hired a sex worker in a location where prostitution is legal.
A person who was in a position of "trust" who solicited sex would still be automatically disqualified from FBI employment, one of the sources with direct knowledge of the changes told CBS News.
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